Wishing all our families a restful and safe break.

UNIFORM REMINDER

St Mary’s College has a wonderful uniform that brings us pride and strengthens our commitment to our community. It is a pleasure to see our students in their uniform.

Our goal for our Uniform Policy was to be as gender-neutral as possible for inclusivity, consistency, and safety. We thank you for your support of the Uniform Policy and have appreciated the feedback thus far.

COVID SYMPTOMS

COVID communication was sent to all families early this term, outlining the changes to close contact restrictions. The communication reiterated the ongoing restriction to not come to school if exhibiting any COVID-like symptoms until they have stopped. We have had a number of students coming to school with symptoms including temperatures, vomiting, running nose, and sore throats. Even if testing negative, these are contagious symptoms and we are required to meet the regulations.

If your child is at school and is exhibiting COVID symptoms you will be contacted to collect them asap and take them home. Your child will be required to remain at home until the symptoms have gone.

Staff have been reminded to send any students with symptoms to the sickbay.

ATTENDANCE

One of the biggest influences on a student’s success at school is attendance. The data shows that we as a school community are currently attending school 87% of the time. The goal is to attend school 90% of the time. As a community, only 55% of students have achieved 90% or <. 80% attendance means that students are missing one day every week of school.

The research shows that less than 90% attendance, and success in social, emotional, academic, sporting, cultural and religious growth can be negatively impacted.

If your child is away, we must be notified. Please use the Compass app to inform us as the school can assist in supporting your child in their ongoing learning.

It would be wonderful to see our attendance improve this term. I will keep you updated with the data.

VAPING & PHONES

We have a number of students engaging in vaping at school. This unhealthy, antisocial practice has begun to be regularly participated in by our students in the toilets. This is unhygienic. This is antisocial behaviour and is occurring during classes, between classes and breaks. We have found a number of vapes hidden in the toilets’ cisterns.

We treat vaping as the same as smoking. The law and the rules for our grounds are the same. We ask that you follow up with your child and ensure you and your child are fully aware of the dangers and health concerns that can arise from this practice.

Phones are also an ongoing concern. Students are spending up to 7 to 10 hours a night on their devices. This can range from gaming to viewing streams of TikTok videos, communicating with others through apps such as Snapchat, bullying and harassing online and creating content. Sleep deprivation is not conducive to being open to learning. Late nights and excessive dopamine does not induce sleep. We have students who have fallen asleep in classes.

We ask that families have a plan in place to support good practices with electronic devices. A centralised charging station, time allocations, responsibilities and time off devices. If you are unsure or need help, there are many sites that can assist. I recommend starting with SchoolTV on our website.

Your child’s phone is an important tool for communication for you. We respect that this is essential and accept that our students have phones. However, we ask that you reiterate the importance of not using their phone during school hours and the impact this has on their learning, and on them socially and emotionally. We also ask that you discuss the importance of not photographing others, not using phones during lessons and maintaining a level of respect when staff ask them not to. The reactions range from complaints to arguments and crying when we ask students to not engage on their phones when teaching and learning is occurring.

Many of our most concerning behaviours and interactions from students come out of the negative interactions on the app SnapChat and the videos on TikTok. These apps are popular and can be fun; but they are used to bully, intimidate, impersonate and offend.

When we ask students about the negative interactions online, most are occurring through the night and on weekends, but the impact of this is seen fully in the emotional and stressful interactions here at school. We have also been told that some students have a phone that is their ‘visible phone’ and a secret phone that they keep hidden and use for such activity.

We are in partnership with our families to ensure that our students are Living Well and Learning Well and we appreciate your support in achieving the best learning outcomes for our students.

God Bless

Bernadette Feldman

Gunnedah Catholic Schools Combined P&F

2022 Debutante Ball (June)